I would actually say that the old spear is generally more realistic...

For reference. Although that details nordic spears, they were basically identical throughout England, Europe and even Rus Asia, and did not change much through many years. I know less about ancient spears, like Greek or Roman but here's a pretty legit looking Greek repro on sale (only 50 bucks!) that is basically the same as well.

Also, beyond the point of historical accuracy, the newer spear is also arguably less realistic in its constructionseriously who doesn't use a metal socketif you slot your spear haft into a cut in the wood, you're gonna have a bad timeit makes the blade that much more likely to bend

That said if you can live with the blade attachment the ring makes nice decoration, and the diamond shaped blade is fair neato. Someone used the rings as stand ins for the blade lugs/wings that sum spears have as well, which was not too shabby if you squint and know the source.

I know Gaius Marius re-designed the Roman Pilum so the head would break off after it hit the target. This was so the German's wouldn't bait the Legionnaire into throwing it too early then picking it up and reusing it. After the battle Roman engineers could just re-attach the head.

I think the new spear sort of fits that style but I don't know. I like both styles to be honest.

True! Some Pilum were also made to bend on impact with a shield, I believe. But as far as I know they both had a pretty noticeably thin bar above the main shaft, which the new spear lacks. Not really my area of expertise though.

I do like the new spear... I'm just not sure I'd call it more realistic, necessarily.

Athos wrote:I prefer the original swords. Its probably mostly nostalgia, but they seem more Lego-like to me.

The new swords are great designs, but they make the old ones look cartoony and childish. So I don't think they go well together. And when I have to pick between old and new, I'm going with old most every time.

Steve

I like the designs of the new weapons, I just wish the blacksmiths weapons were as sturdy as the original sword. I tend to favor older versus newer, perhaps it will take more time to get used to the old ones.-Tower

I like the new swords much more than the old ones, except that figs can't hold the pommel or the crossguards. However, they look much, much better. The new classic-styled sword seems interesting, I wouldn't mind having a few. As for the spears, well, I don't really like that plastic, but the design is fine by me.

With the highlander claymore now showing up in main system LOTR sets, and the gladius showing up in two minifig series it seems safe to say that we have two new members of the lego sword family. I'm interested to know your thoughts on these swords.

For myself, while I like the blade design the hilts just do not 'do it' for me. For some reason the new swords seem 'cheap' next to the classic short swords. Do you agree or is that just me?

Hmm, I disagree. I like the new designs on them, they seem much more realistic to me. That is my opinion.

I really like the new designs. I do agree that they look much more realistic than the classic designs. For now I will only arm leaders and new armies with these. It will be a long time before I aquire enough of them to arm my classic armies. If anyone takes some comparison photos with their classic figures please post them. I really like the new spear just because of the two tone nature to them.

I'm on board with the "more variety is better" crowd. Neither the highlander sword nor the gladius are impressively designed pieces, but different sword types can be used to distinguish fighting styles and characters. I do think LOTR deserved more new sword molds than just Sting, but maybe there are surprises ahead for us. Lego is doing fantastic work on multiple fronts of late I think.

AK_Brickster wrote:Man, I must be a complete dope! I didn't even notice that the chess set's swords were different!

Time to run home and check for myself!

EDIT: or are you saying just the instructions show it to be different? Where did the one in the pic come from if that's the case?

I picked up a few extra lion knights on ebay (someone was parting out a chess set) and noticed that one of them had the new shortsword (same as the series 9 heroic knight). It seems that some of the chess sets came with different swords, but not all. Anyway, I decided to do a comparison. It also seems I have two different variants of old grey shortsword, that aren't differentiated on bricklink (one shiney harder plastic, one matt and more bendy like the newer plastic).